Developer Spotlight: Anthony Pipkin and DataTable

I recently sat down with YUI developer Anthony Pipkin (@apipkin) and talked with him about the work he is currently doing on YUI DataTable. While only joining the YUI team this past July, Tony has been a long-time YUI contributor and active member of the community via the forums and on IRC. DataTable has been around a long time in the YUI ecosystem - dating back from YUI 2.x days - but has recently been overhauled and rebuilt from the ground up by Luke Smith. After moving on to SmugMug, there was a period of time when DataTable was without an owner. After joining the YUI team, Tony wanted to find a high-profile aspect of YUI that needed attention and development. DataTable was a natural fit. Since his decision to take on ownership of DataTable, Tony has been syncing up with Luke regarding the DataTable roadmap as well as diving deep into the codebase to get a broad understanding of how it works. He identified Pagination as one of the first features in DataTable to take on, and he’s been actively working on that feature. Once his work with Paginator is done (it will also exist as a stand-alone YUI module) he will then be alternating between major bug fixes and the next item on the roadmap. This is where you as a member of the YUI the community will be playing a major role in the future of DataTable. We need your help to decide which features from the roadmap get priority. In addition, we want to learn about additional bug fixes or features that you have been wanting to see in DataTable so we can make it the best-in-class solution for your development needs. Tony added a comment he wanted me to share.

"I'm excited to take on the challenge of updating DataTable, and I've learned a lot so far. I am looking forward to adding progressive enhancement and inline editing as well as many other features. I am anticipating great things with DataTable's future development!"

We have created a SurveyMonkey survey to help gather information about DataTable and the community around it. (Note there are a total of 5 questions, so you may have to scroll.) Take a few minutes if you can and add your voice to the future of DataTable!